I’m genetically obliged to post this

Just so you don’t think that I’m being plainly racist here, my British heritage makes me genetically obliged to post this. It’s something I can’t avoid, I was culturally committed from the moment I saw it. Here’s a Chinese taxi driver with a no holds barred approach to his work:

refuse to carry frenchmen and dogs

I’d love to know just what his experience was that caused him to have that sign made up. You can only assume that it wasn’t a single incident either. Or if it was a single incident, it must have been a doozy.

I just can’t understand what his problem is with dogs.

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11 Comments

I know why they are afraid of dogs. My Chinese friends told me that they have a serious rabies problem in China, and infected stray dogs are responsible for hundreds of deaths each year. Even though reason dictates the dog would be vaccinated, the residual fear is still there.

pinkbagels – In China it’s extremely unlikely that a dog would be vaccinated. It’s not quite the same as here or in the UK/US/etc. In truth, though it’s changing, the Chinese have a very different relationship to dogs.

Indigo – I don’t imagine that hearing dogs have made it to China yet. Maybe in the big cities, but even then…

Hey – I thought that, what with your British heritage, and the fact that around 30,000 words in English are French, oh yeah and that they conquered you (and in turn you them) and you fought in two world wars together and are now part of the same country (sorry, “political and economic union”) now ruled by the a Belgian guy, I thought you would have had a little more sympathy for your ultra-secular, beret-wearing, garlic-loving neighbhours! 😉

This refers to an incident in the run up to the 2008 Olympics when a Tibetan protestor knocked over the woman who was carrying the Olympic torch through Paris. There was a wave of anti-French feeling in China as a result (including boycotts of Carrefour, etc)

The sign is a reference to the apocryphal sign that was supposed to ahng outside a park in Shanghai during the colonial period (‘no dogs or Chinese’). France held a concession in Shanghai at the time. So two flavours of grievance in one.